Roman Opalka[Artist, b. 1931, Hocquincourt, France, d. 2011, Rome.]

Art has a lot in common with madness. After all, why should one get involved with art? You can live normally like everyone else—which is to say, as stupidly as everyone else.

These obsessions—death, disappearance, the irreversibility of time—are difficult, courageous, suicidal. In fact, my attitude has been likened to suicide, sacrifice. People have often thought I was the prisoner of my idea. In fact, I just couldn’t do anything else.